When I was a student engineer I wanted to build my own road car. I planned out how much it would cost, where I would buy parts, what would I use as a donor vehicle, how would I manufacture the bodywork and most importantly: what engine would I use? I didn't want to make just another kit car, it had to be scalable, and with my own engine.

For many women one of the pleasures of ageing is that it frees them from the need to continually monitor and police their appearance. What a relief: bring on the elasticated waistbands and sensible shoes, they cry! But if 50 is the new 30, 60 the new 40, etc etc, they're doomed to eternal self-scrutiny. How to look hot at 100? The very prospect gives them a migraine.

The internal combustion engine (ICE) was one of the iconic inventions and mass technologies of the 20th century. It made fortunes for successful entrepreneurs and companies, and resulted in some of the largest corporations of the present day.

Multidimensional poverty, as participatory work of late has shown, includes poor health, lack of education, inadequate living standards, environmental degradation, lack of income, gender discrimination, poor quality of work and violence. Ending $1.25/day poverty is unlikely to mean the end of these many overlapping disadvantages.

Poverty has always been with humanity - even Jesus said that the poor would always be with us. Yet while nothing short of a miracle would have made poverty eradication possible 2,000 years ago - neither emperors nor kings had the knowledge or resources to do it - today, we have what it takes to tackle poverty.

I know you are expecting a glimpse of the tech-filled car of the future. Maybe something jewel-like in its shiny precision? And let's not forget something that's as photogenic as it is sexy, green, and fast accelerating?

Machine intelligence is coming to drive us. This robotics-science technology will not arrive unannounced in our cars. We will not overnight have no need to learn to drive. Its just that we won't have to be driving all the time in all places.

Traffic is too heavy. Rush hour is too long. Highways are too narrow and byways too slight. Our roads are congested, backed-up, over-crowded, and bumper to crash-proof bumper... The urban environment as we once knew it is gone.

We can be proud of the long list of inventions that hail from these islands: the steam engine, railways, steel production, the electric motor, radio, computers, antibiotics, radar, DNA research, industrial automation and the worldwide web have all have their roots in pioneering British work. A Japanese survey once found that 56 per cent of the world's greatest inventions come from these shores.

What can we do here in Britain to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in order to give our companies the best chance to succeed on the world stage? This is a question that we as a country need to answer if we are to remain an economic powerhouse, and with a multitude of emerging economies breathing down our necks, it's a question we need to answer quickly.

The Smart City idea attracts hype and scepticism in dynamic balance; but it's a boring kind of balance. As something of a bystander until now and as an architect and citizen, I will attempt here to sieve out the essence of smart.

The scale and pace of urban development is startling. Allowing for a world population of nine billion people by 2050, every single new person on the planet will be accounted for in a city somewhere - that's eight new Londons a year for the next 40 years.

Lower gas prices could speed up the EU's economic recovery and facilitate the growth of European gas demand. This will also benefit Russian gas producers. Hence, political manoeuvrings in the Kremlin's corridors of power could determine whether Russia will choose gas volumes over prices.

Imagine a future where you simply press a button to have your own personal railway car waiting, day or night, to whisk you off at many times the speed of a car. And environmentally friendly, too! This is what we are designing in the 'RailCab' project.

Did you see the debate? A debate with a host of celebrities: Russell Brand, Sir Richard Branson; world leaders, and eminent opinion formers. Oh, and Peter Hitchens was in attendance. A debate of such magnitude would surely not creep under the radar? Especially given the gravitas of the contested subject?

Martin Amis provided the evening's most entertaining moments. Going through old photographs with Stephen Fry, he was fantastically funny, noting a baguette stowed away in Hitchens' top pocket while in Paris, and remarking upon his abundant sprouting chest-hair in another that showed him smoking a cigarette while holding a brace of pheasants on the Rothschild estate.

For those of us who choose 'happy' - the split between business and the environment is no longer tenable. We need one story; one future that we all commit to together. Is it time for a "Get The Story Straight" campaign? Are you in?

The race is already on to tell the big story about the News of the World / News International scandal. For a whole class of the commentariat, this is the moment either to fit the story into their continuing narrative, with a sort of "I told you so" tone to it; or, maybe rather more interestingly, when "I told you so" would be a stretch, to shift to some degree the story they are telling.